Fresh lawsuits for Hynix, Infineon, Nanya and Inotera

Litigiously inclined memory technology developer Rambus has filed four more lawsuits against memory chip makers it claims used its intellectual property without permission.

Hynix and Infineon are already being sued by Rambus, but Nanya and Inotera represent new targets for the company's very busy legal team.

In all four cases, Rambus maintains that the defendants' DDR 2, GDDR 2 and GDDR 3 chips contain technology over which Rambus claims ownership. It says 18 patents have been infringed, and has asked the court to block the sale of the allegedly infringing products and to force the four to pay up damages for their "wilful infringement".

Last week, Hynix was deemed by the US District Court of Northern California to have infringed 50 claims enshrined in 15 Rambus patents. The ruling followed seven requests for summary judgement, six made by Hynix, one by Rambus. As a result of the ruling, the case goes to trial in March.

For Infineon, the suit will only exacerbate the company's belief that Rambus is using the courts not to seek recompense for damage done, but as a competitive weapon to pressure chip makers into coughing up royalties. In December 2004, Infineon filed a motion with the US District Court of Virginia asking the presiding judge, Judge Robert Payne, to dismiss Rambus' lawsuit against it on the grounds that Rambus engaged in "litigation misconduct". ®